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> Refactored our front/end experience using React. vs > Increased user engagement 27% by refactoring our front-end experience in React. Do tech interviewers

• martinald 6y ago
  It shows that you are thinking about 'the greater goal' of improving commercial/revenue performance for the company over "just" technical stuff. This is incredibly rare, I would say less than 5% of technical/developer resumes I read have anything remotely relating to this. Usually very tech heavy, which is great, but a few bullets about this shows you understand and care about more than just the tech side.
  • ingvul 6y ago
    But you don't need numbers for that. A simple "increased user engagement by refactoring our front-end in React" is more than enough; it tells me that the goal was to "increase user engagement" (that's the greater goal, nice!) and that you know (hopefully) your way around React (tech stuff, nice!). The number strikes me as bs.
    • marcinzm 6y ago
      Companies are driven by numbers and manager bonuses are driven by the numbers their team produces. A developer who shows they can produce those numbers is valuable. The number may be BS or unscientific or whatever but it is there and usually that is enough for management. Anyone can say "increased user engagement" but a number says you measured it somehow which gives it worth and that is why management wants numbers.
      • bonoboTP 6y ago
        > The number may be BS or unscientific > but a number says you measured it somehow Okay so it may be BS, but at least it's measured somehow, where somehow may include pulling it entirely out of your ass. But indeed this is key: > Companies are driven by numbers and manager bonuses are driven by the numbers their team produces Those numbers may be bullshit as well, but there's already a cult around them and you demonstrate belonging to the tribe by flinging around numbers just like they do.
        • deleted 6y ago
          [deleted]
  • nraynaud 6y ago
    as a developer you generally can't directly pin numbers to your contributions. A very long time, I helped a company get into a new segment of market. I have no number to give, it's just that the CEO, told me so. I'm not even sure it was smart to go there, I was just asked to transform the product to go there, and I did, but I'm not a salesman.
  • thom 6y ago
    I agree this is something to look for, but doing that with numbers alone makes you look like you had extremely narrow responsibilities, and probably shouldn’t be interacting with stakeholders anyway because you can’t use words like a normal person.
• redisman 6y ago
  I totally agree that this trend is dumb. It doesn’t even pass very common sense checks. Just because its numbers doesn’t make it a good signal. Anyone can cherry pick numbers that make their contribution look godlike. Oh I improved the loading time of our internal tool by 1000% by applying very basic optimizations I googled 5 minutes before that no one had bothered to do since it’s low priority. Especially at smaller companies where you can easily 100-10000x specific things that no one has had time to optimize yet since they haven’t been top priority. To a smaller extent at big tech but the point is that optimization numbers without a great amount of context is completely meaningless (like the parent said)
  • slothtrop 6y ago
    I agree, but I also believe this is what the HR department would respond to best, if you happen to go through them first. All too often that is the case.
  • treis 6y ago
    Numbers are good. These are the wrong numbers to include. You want something that indicates the scale, scope, and complexity of what you did. I don't care that you increased user engagement by X%. I care that you've designed and implemented the type of things that I need designef and implemented.
    • compscistd 6y ago
      But what number would you like to see on a one liner bullet point to indicate “scale, scope, and complexity”?
      • treis 6y ago
        Designed and implemented GraphQL API for 30 objects serving 200 Queries per second
        • ubercow13 6y ago
          That still seems meaningless. 200 queries per second, while pegging 8 CPU cores. Meanwhile my coworker got the short straw implemented a less-used API serving 10 queries, but did it much better than me and used no CPU.
• marcinzm 6y ago
  The exact number is irrelevant, the fact that there is a number is relevant. That means the developer not only understood the business requirements but also measured the impact afterwards. That's a very valuable skill in many companies that use metrics to make decisions. In fact it doesn't even matter if the number was utter BS and unscientific in measurement. So are probably 80% of metrics in companies that are metrics driven. But the manager running the team still needs a metric to meet their goals and this developer shows that they can deliver that.
  • bromuro 6y ago
    Or it is just a random number to show I have measured something because a website told me so. Why bother with numbers?
    • marcinzm 6y ago
      Because until it becomes abused to worthlessness it gives you a leg up on those who aren't doing so. That's the cycle of most things involving hiring.
  • mcenedella 6y ago
    OP here. I think this is exactly right "The exact number is irrelevant, the fact that there is a number is relevant. That means the developer not only understood the business requirements but also measured the impact afterwards." In follow-up interviews, the interviewer may dig into those results, and in reference checks, may try to confirm your achievements, so I do not think it's accurate to say it would be OK to use BS numbers. But the overall sense that numbers are important, and send an important signal about a developer's work habits, patterns and practices, is true.
    • marcinzm 6y ago
      A number can be corroborated by multiple people and have a logical chain to its creation and still be utter BS. Even scientific papers with their standards have massive issues with reproducibility. Look at the HN comments pointing out measurement methodology flaws when some corporate blog claims X% improvement. My point was more towards those engineers who are sticklers for accuracy and truth. It doesn't matter in this case. Mass delusion is fine as long as enough people believe it and there's a thin veneer of logic around it.
• nv-vn 6y ago
  100% agree. For a long time I got by with my resume just covering achievements at a high level without any numbers. Every time I asked for resume advice, people suggested adding more numbers to it. Having worked on building up a lot of infrastructure stuff from the ground up, I never really had a great way to describe my job with a handful of numbers because the impact was the creation of the project rather than increasing/decreasing/reducing/whatever metrics. Eventually I caved in to the trend but this led to an interesting encounter: I had one behavioral interview where the interviewer really ripped apart some of the numbers -- what does "growing user base by 50%" mean out of context if you only have 10 users, how accurately can "decreased load time by 75%" actually capture the scope of your work if it's a 5 minute change, etc.? Numbers can be great to tell a story, but it seems like often time that story is either a distraction from the day-to-day reality of a job or just a gamed metric of some kind. This trend really sucks because there's a definite pressure (at least early in one's career) to pick up tasks at work that look good on a resume but may be low-impact IRL (e.g. rather than adding a new feature that people will pay for, let's just whittle away at latency that's already fast enough for our users).
  • mcenedella 6y ago
    OP here. Thanks for the great comment and sharing your story. In the context of your background - "Having worked on building up a lot of infrastructure stuff from the ground up," it's important that you chose numbers that are level appropriate for someone of your capabilities. if the feedback was " how accurately can "decreased load time by 75%" actually capture the scope of your work if it's a 5 minute change", then that indicates that you may have been showing numbers that weren't truly indicative of your skills and talents. And I don't agree that picking up tasks that are low impact IRL will help. Ultimately, hiring managers aren't easy to fool, and low-impact metrics make a small impact on resume readers.
• bonoboTP 6y ago
  Charitably, it's to show you care about business context. Realistically, it's a tribal signal to cargo culting manager types who like to talk about percentages and like pointing to flipcharts with a stick in a suit. It doesn't matter what number you put there. If you're writing to numerate, technical types don't do this, because technical people know that just a percentage without context makes no sense. You reduced costs by 16%? Costs of what? What's the denominator? You increased engagement? What does that mean? Subscribers? Clicks? Time spent? This is the same kind of thing as when academics sprinkle unnecessarily complicated-looking math equations to describe plainly obvious things with impressive symbols, when it's objectively unnecessary. The goal is to give it a certain look, to signal seriousness. As silly as it may sound, it probably actually works. Since we are on HN, probably many of you know the Paul Graham classic "Submarine" [1] post, > Our greatest PR coup was a two-part one. We estimated, based on some fairly informal math, that there were about 5000 stores on the Web. We got one paper to print this number, which seemed neutral enough. But once this "fact" was out there in print, we could quote it to other publications, and claim that with 1000 users we had 20% of the online store market. > This was roughly true. We really did have the biggest share of the online store market, and 5000 was our best guess at its size. But the way the story appeared in the press sounded a lot more definite. > Reporters like definitive statements. For example, many of the stories about Jeremy Jaynes's conviction say that he was one of the 10 worst spammers. This "fact" originated in Spamhaus's ROKSO list, which I think even Spamhaus would admit is a rough guess at the top spammers. The first stories about Jaynes cited this source, but now it's simply repeated as if it were part of the indictment. [4] > All you can say with certainty about Jaynes is that he was a fairly big spammer. But reporters don't want to print vague stuff like "fairly big." They want statements with punch, like "top ten." And PR firms give them what they want. Wearing suits, we're told, will make us 3.6 percent more productive. I think it's similar with certain hiring managers too. They want definite statements, because it provides for CYA ammo. The guy looked great on paper, look at those percentages! [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
  • mcenedella 6y ago
    OP here. I agree with this: "just a percentage without context makes no sense. You reduced costs by 16%? Costs of what? What's the denominator? You increased engagement? What does that mean? Subscribers? Clicks? Time spent?" And this: "Charitably, it's to show you care about business context." But disagree that you should not do this if writing resumes for "numerate, technical types." A great technical resume helps get you the interview. In an interview, especially a behavioral interview, you'll be asked deeper question about that 16% cost reduction. Exactly the question you've pointed out. And your resume is more likely to get selected for the reason you pointed out - it shows that you care about business context, or, more broadly, commercial technical achievement. With technical, numerically literate types as interviewers, they are going to want to know something about how successful you were in being technically accomplished. And the plain, observed, fact is that professionals who demonstrate, with numbers, their accomplishments, get more interviews than professionals who paste their job description, or simply assert they achieved something good without quantifying it. And a good Paul Graham citation is always welcome and relevant! :)
• PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  As a hiring manager, most of the “Increased revenue by 27%” type lines on tech resumes are clearly awkward attempts to implement generic Internet resume advice. When was the last time a company attributed sales growth to some developer making a change? Don’t try to take credit for things that the company, as a whole, accomplished. The two places I like to see specific numbers are when communicating project scale or demonstrating some quantifiable change that was directly attributable to a person’s work. Good examples: “Reduced AWS bill by 40% by profiling server code and implementing strategic optimizations” “Architected cloud backend to support 500,000 daily users” “Reduced average page load time by 57% percent” If there isn’t an obvious, direct relationship between the person’s actions and the business outcome then I simply ignore it. If the person can only cite company-level achievements that don’t directly relate to their work, I assume they’re reaching because they can’t otherwise demonstrate how they personally contributed.
  • mcenedella 6y ago
    Original author here. This is fair. For a developer at a small status, connecting their work to an increase in user engagement might be appropriate. At a mid- or large-size firm, your bullet points would be more relevant and a better reflection of the work done. I hope you don't mind if I steal these bullets when I update the post! :)
    • HellDunkel 6y ago
      Question: Why are you doing this for free? Are people coming back for advice? Those silly numbers are a complete showstopper form me but may actually work with some folks i would not want to work for.
      • mcenedella 6y ago
        Why? Great technical resumes make for better outcomes for professionals. We talk more about here: https://www.meetleet.com/#faq https://www.meetleet.com/#faq Silly numbers: ok, if those numbers are silly, I agree, you shouldn't use them. What numbers are relevant to your professional success? How can you demonstrate, as a technology professional working in a commercial enterprise, that you helped improve the company, team, or product during this year? The important thing is to find numbers that you don't believe are silly, but that are meaningful and relevant to your performance and share those. The nature of the accomplishments you cite, and the type of numbers you use, reflect the type of professional you perceive yourself to be. And that signal is meaningful to hiring managers in recruiting processes.
• mcenedella 6y ago
  Author of the post here. Great comments from everybody. The importance of numbers on your resume comes from a few places: - Shows you care about the results of your work, rather than just performed the work - Show that you understand the connection between your work and technical or business outcomes - Demonstrates your specific capabilities in using your technological skills in delivering results At this moment in time, the amplitude of accomplishments does not matter. For example, two resumes with the same type of accomplishments, but one has double the numbers of the first, would not mean that one resume is twice as likely to get interviews. Both would be far more likely than a resume without numbers to get interviews. In a future world where all technical resumes have well-attested numbers, this may shift. We are nowhere near that point yet. As for accomplishments not being fact-checked. Well, yes, that's true. And that's why a resume can generate you an interview request, but not a job offer. During an interview, particularly behavioral interviews, an employer will dig deeper and want to understand more about the why and how you achieved what you achieved.
• slmjkdbtl 6y ago
  another thing is I can't see how refactoring with react can increase any user engagement, either the previous version is so slow that it's unusable or the product also gone through some UI/UX redesign
• methyl 6y ago
  I agree that this particular example makes no sense. If I'm looking to hire a React developer to help me achieve my business goals, what I care about is how proficient is the candidate is in React. Unless it was it was decision of the developer to do the rewrite, the metric is out of context. Better example built around the engineering skills, which are probably more relevant: "Lead a team of two migrating our 100 Backbone Views front-end to React in two months, without disrupting deployments"
• deleted 6y ago
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• czynskee 6y ago
  What's really more important than having numbers is having specific details on your resume (which could include numbers). Every bullet point on your resume might represent months of work (depending on how long your career has been). E.g., you may have refactored the front-end in a few days, or maybe it took you two months. There's no way to sum that experience into one bullet point, and that's not really the point. It's better to have some very targeted details that can reveal the depth of your experience than high level summaries which may technically be better descriptors. It helps the person reading the resume better imagine who you are and the kinds of things that you do. It also can provide a bit of context that you can later expand on in more detail during e.g. a screening interview. They might ask you how you measured user engagement, which gives you another chance to talk and sound smart. You might miss that opportunity with more generic descriptors.
• austincheney 6y ago
  As a senior developer when I see a job description that speaks more to frameworks or tool chains than product I ignore it and move on. I suspect some interviewers might do the same for candidate resumes. The difference is communicating what you actually accomplish versus how you might do it.
• slumdev 6y ago
  Probably depends who's reading it. For a non-technical person reviewing this resume, the first one doesn't mean anything. And at most companies, there are still non-technical people who screen resumes before forwarding them to the hiring manager (to make sure you have at least 10 years of experience working with a framework that has only existed for 5, etc.) To that audience, the two examples might as well be something like: > Remodulated the warp core using Coaster.js vs. > Made the company oodles of big money with this one neat trick.
• bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  > Increased user engagement 27% by refactoring our front-end experience in React. >But it's impossible to say that React (or any other tech) will bring you an increase of engagement I think it's more like it is very unlikely that the choice of technology used to implement something is what improves the user experience in any way. Basically the only way I can think of is if technology choice has a noticeable effect on performance. As a general rule technology choice improves the company experience - so a statement like: Increased our ability to roll out new functionality 27% by refactoring our front-end experience in React. or similar statements about how technology choice improved things for the company might make sense, although of course your remarks regarding the percentage still holds.
• fpig 6y ago
  The other reason this is stupid is, the person reading your resume is usually either some administrative person doing basic filtering or a knowledgeable technical person. Neither of them are going to be swayed by you claiming you increased user engagement or cut costs by X%. The administrative person is going to ignore it as it's beyond the scope of what they're doing, and the technical guy will laugh at it. I can't imagine a situation where this would realistically make you look good. Maybe if you're applying to a small/micro company who has no technical staff at present time, and the owner is non-technical and looking at your resume themselves? Basically a company that lacks anyone qualified to evaluate you, and they're looking for their first developer to build something that will help their business. Then you might be able to sell yourself by claiming you improved business metrics.